You may find it hard to make the connection between any medical procedure and leadership, let alone a colonoscopy! I know I would have never put the two together until my recent experience.

I heard most of my life how awful a colonoscopy could be.  The prep is difficult, the drink you have to take is horrendous, and…it’s a colonoscopy! Guess what? I found it wasn’t so bad after all.  Was it the most fun experience I’ve ever had? No. Was the drink I had to drink delicious? Of course not…but it wasn’t that bad either.

The day before you can only have fluids to ‘clear your system’.  I actually enjoyed drinking the fluids and enjoyed the broth I ate.  I felt energized rather than depleted by the process.

When I arrived for the procedure – the process was seamless. I was seen within 15 minutes of arrival and greeted by the staff who were organized, pleasant and competent. The drugs were as wonderful as I had heard and I awakened in a totally alert state with no grogginess at all.

My husband played taxi cab driver for me and stayed with me all day to ‘be sure I was ok’, A friend called in the afternoon to check on me to see how it went.

As I went through this experience I found some parallel’s to effective leadership today.  Call me weird, but here are the four leadership lessons I learned from a colonoscopy: Read more »